J.P.

Walks.

While my computing experience is decidedly a mix bag of ecosystems and companies these days, one of the things I love about my Apple Watch and our Apple One family subscription is Apple Fitness+. (How many times can I type Apple in one sentence? Wow).

If you’re not familiar, Apple Fitness+ offers a slew of fitness activities oriented around the Apple Watch, Apple TV, and your iDevices. One of my favorite features is “It’s Time For A Walk” structured around going for a walk. The new season just started up. For the first episode this season we went for a walk with Jamie Lee Curtis.

I’ve always found Jamie Lee Curtis to be pleasant and I know that’s she created and/or been involved with a bunch of humanitarian efforts over the years. Her conversation on this week’s “It’s Time For A Walk” was very inspiring. The vibe of the episode just pushed me in the positive direction I need to be shoved towards and it left me feeling happy, but more importantly it created a wonderful sense of groundedness that I was missing at the beginning of this work week.

9 January 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Flying.

I’ve decided to try a new airplane rental place located at nearby Marana Regional Airport. They have a couple of airplanes I’m very familiar with, the Cessna 172 Skyhawk and I look to be flying them soon, but they also have a Cessna Cardinal 177 available for rent. Designed after the C172 and manufactured for a shorter time, the C177 is roomier inside and offers better views as it doesn’t have wing struts.

I’d never flown a Cardinal before and I had to get checked out by an instructor in the airplane before I could rent it. Instructor Austin is a younger pilot with many ratings, including flying private jets, so we went up and I showed him I could fly an airplane. It’s been my experience that it would take a couple flights for me to show my proficiency in a new-to-me kind of airplane, but the Cardinal 177 handled wonderfully through the required maneuvers and landing it was easy. I think after all these years I’m realizing I know how to fly airplanes.

I look forward to going up again soon.

8 January 2023 by Pilot. 0

Caturday.

Truman has had an active week. I’m blaming this on the full moon. He’s decided to start ripping at the weatherstripping around the door to the garage. He shot out the back door when the dogs were going out to do their thing, and when I went to retrieve him he went running as fast as he could do into the wash behind the house. He was gone for about an hour before I was able to retrieve him from a thicket of brush he had position himself under. I believe he decided to go here after he realized he couldn’t climb a saguaro cactus in the back lawn. He’s been yelling and meowing loudly a lot.

I think he’s found a new sense of adventure or something. Either that or he knows his annual vet visit is this month.

When all is said and done he settles into his favorite cat bed and takes a nap.

7 January 2023 by He's A Feline. 0

Yell.

The crowd at the local hockey games yell a lot. Always eager to put my own spin on the experience, when the ref did something stupid (in the crowd’s opinion) tonight, I yelled, “Go back to the Ice Capades, ref!”

That got my point across with a little flair.

6 January 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Womp Womp, Part 2.

I have to admit I’ve been fascinated with Kevin McCarthy’s repeated failures to get elected as Speaker of the House in the House of the Representatives of the U.S. Government. Curiously (or probably not so much), this song has been going through my head all day while reading about repeated failure after repeated failure.

As of this writing, Mr. McCarthy has not been elected after 11 elections in three days. Will he continue the streak tomorrow?

5 January 2023 by This Ain't No CNN. 0

Womp. Womp.

Photo from AP News.

I have to admit I’m a little fascinated by the drama going on with the new session of Congress, specifically the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. As of this writing the fifth election is taking place to elect McCarthy in the role, and it’s not looking good. The “Freedom Caucus” is holding out and 20 Republican members of the House are casting their votes for others.

Now, ideologically I’m not aligned with these folks on the “Freedom Caucus”. But I’ve long held the belief that the U.S. Government in general needs a shake up and away from the “same old, same old” approach that’s been going on for decades and these 20 folks holding their ground are certainly shaking things up.

It’ll be interesting to see how this falls out, especially since there was no “red wave” at the midterm elections and the Republicans BARELY hold a majority in the House. On one hand, the GOP not getting their stuff together to elect a speaker is damaging to their political capital (aww, so sad). But on the other hand, more of these shake ups may be just what this country needs to start things moving forward again.

We just need to keep moving things in the proper direction.

UPDATE 14:31 MST as I finished up this entry, Mr. McCarthy lost his fifth round of voting in his efforts to become speaker.

4 January 2023 by This Ain't No CNN. 0

Science.

I have enjoyed the first three seasons of “For All Mankind”. There’s been a couple of hiccups in the story in the later seasons that bothered me a bit, but the series as a whole has been quite enjoyable. I’m looking forward to the release of season four this year.

I’ve wondered about the science behind the series; how close to a future reality is it? Well, YouTube suggested a series of videos from AppleTV showing the science behind the scenes of “For All Mankind” and how close it is to reality. I’m impressed by the amount of scientific investigation they are apparently doing as they formulate the storylines of the series. While it’s fun to think of Star Trek as being scientifically accurate, we all know we’re not going to see a transporter anytime soon. However, spaceships sailing on protons or nuclear fusion? We’re headed in that direction. And that gives me some hope.

Now, I know of the efforts to colonize Mars and get back to the moon and all that stuff. It’s these efforts that will ultimately make our lives better here on Earth. When folks ask, “why do we need to go to Mars?” I always reply it’s because it’s the impetus to make things better here on Earth.

And we really need to make things better here on Earth.

3 January 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Work.

So tomorrow it’s back to work and we’re off and running in a New Year. I’m hopeful this year will not be as crazy as 2022 but we live in a crazy world. It’s all about how we manage the crazy. Sometimes I worry about these things too much.

2 January 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 0

2023 Has Begun.

It’s a quiet start to 2023 and it’s the perfect start to 2023. Earl is watching football, I’m relaxing by messing around with computers, making sure things are “just right” for the New Year. We are going to Target in a bit to pick up some odds and ends. Thunderstorms are in the forecast for later this afternoon. The rest of the family is relaxing as well.

It’s a great start to this latest trip around the sun.

1 January 2023 by Ponderings and Musings 1

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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